Placed in the rear gallery of the
lofty sanctuary, the organ is housed in an American walnut case
designed by Charles Nazarian to harmonize with the Victorian Gothic
architecture of the church. The façade pipes are of hammered
lead, the largest is DD# of the Great Prestant 16'.

Charles Fisk made an initial visit to the church in September 1980, and
set the course for the design of the instrument. The contract was
signed in April 1984, four months after Charles’s death, an expression
of the church’s trust in his successors. The final tonal design
reflects numerous discussions with Dr. Douglas Reed, Organ Consultant
to the church and Professor of Organ at the University of Evansville. A
number of pipes from the Marshall Brothers instrument of 1874 and the
Casavant rebuild of 1925 were reconditioned at the Fisk workshop and
revoiced to fit Opus 98’s tonal scheme. The temperament is Fisk I. The
stop action is mechanical and is outfitted with a mechanical
combination system.

In response to recommendations by acoustician R. Lawrence Kirkegaard of
Chicago, the entire ceiling was resurfaced with sound-reflecting
material. Kirkegaard, in consultation with architects Knapp, Given,
Veazey & Shoulders, designed new air conditioning equipment to
eliminate mechanical noise. The walls on both sides of the balcony were
subtly reshaped to eliminate a flutter echo that would have adversely
affected musical sound from the balcony.

An
earlier organ at Grace Presbyterian Church, one of the predecessor
congregations of First Presbyterian and the congregation which built
the
present building in 1874, is described here:

"The organ cost $5,000. It has
two manuals of sixty-one notes and a
pedal of thirty. There are 1,544 pipes the longest of which is 19
feet
and the stops with the single exception of one run through the
entire compass of the organ." *

This is presumably the instrument by the Marshall Brothers Organ Co. of
Ripon, Wisconsin, which built organs during the 1870s in the English
style. Here is a reference to the history of the Marshall
Brothers Coompany from another church's website:

"John Lancashire, a master organ
builder, came to the United States in 1864 to install a Willis pipe
organ from London, England, in Grace Church, Ripon Wisconsin, which had
been purchased by the Marshall Brothers firm. The Marshall brothers
persuaded Lancashire to join them in organizing an organ factory which
became known as the Marshall Brothers Organ Company. Lancashire in turn
persuaded three Willis employees to join that enterprise: Charles S.
Barlow, the key maker, Edward "Ted" Harris, an excellent pipe maker,
and William H. Turner." **

-------------------
*From a description of the newly built church building in 1874, from: A
History of Evansville and Vanderburgh County, Indiana A Complete and
Concise Account from the Earliest Times to the Present, Embracing
Reminiscences of the Pioneers and Biographical Sketches of the Men who
Have Been Leaders in Commercial and Other Enterprises; By Joseph
Peter
Elliott (1897); accessed at http://books.google.com.

**From the website of the Holy Redeemer by the Sea Catholic Church in
NC, http://www.obxcatholicparish.org/Music.htm, accessed on 7-19-2010.

Click
here for some history of organs in "The Little Church on the Hill"
later Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, the other predecessor
congregation of First Presbyterian.